Various types of interactive voice response systems are well known in the art and typically comprise some means for prompting a caller who has dialed into the system to enter information and/or questions, often in response to a menu of voice prompts issued via the handset of the caller's telephone, wherein caller entries generally consist of DTMF key tones generated using the keypad of the caller's telephone. For example, the caller may be prompted to enter a "1" to enquire about an account balance, a "2" to speak to a customer service representative, or a "0" to speak to the operator. Assuming the caller enters a "1" in response to the first series of prompts, the caller may be prompted to enter his or her account number, at which point, the system will determine the balance of the account associated with the entered account number and announce same to the caller.
Voice mail systems are typically designated as those in which a caller can leave a message for an intended recipient who is not available to take the call at the time the call is received in the system. The caller's message is stored in some type of central memory device, in which all messages received for all extensions on the system are stored, and is designated as being for a single extension. Only the designated recipient can retrieve the messages left for his or her extension. The set of messages designated as being for a single recipient is commonly referred to as the recipient's "voice mailbox," although the messages may be stored throughout the memory device.
Currently available interactive voice response and voice mail systems range from high-end systems aimed at the large commercial consumers, which are typically complex systems custom designed to serve a variety of user-specified purposes, to lower-end systems aimed at the smaller commercial and individual consumers, which systems are typically less complex and capable of implementing fewer features. Moreover, although "lower end" systems have been developed which allow the user to customize certain voice mail and voice response features, such systems typically require a greater level of programming skill and knowledge than the average computer user is apt to possess.
Some existing voice response systems allow a user to record custom prompts, but do not support a text identification that directly relates to and identifies the contents of the response file. In many cases, the audio file comprising the recorded prompt is simply attached to the voice response menu and can only be identified by playing it to the speaker. Systems such as these make it difficult to manage and identify the recorded prompts unless the voice response menu is very simple. Moreover, in such systems, responses cannot be reused.
In other systems, responses can be identified and reused, but cannot be decomposed into constituent elements. As a result, these systems cannot offer as much reuse of prompts, thereby requiring the user to expend nearly the same amount of effort in building and maintaining such systems as would be the case if the prompts were not reusable. Additionally, management of the voice file inventory in such systems is likely to be difficult.
Therefore, what is needed is an interactive voice mail/voice response system that is simple and straightforward enough for the average user to install, customize and operate and that supports the reuse of entire prompts and selected portions thereof.